The lives of George and Amarilla Barclay

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Civil War Service Records for George…

George Barclay served from August 15, 1862 to August 24, 1865. He had 23 cards in his Civil War Service File with various numbers. There was a #75 at the top of the summary card.

D.C. Shoemaker a retired career military man who had served in the Quartermaster Department and a Civil War buff was kind to help me interpret some of the information on George’s Civil War service record cards. D.C. and I were co-workers in years past and I was lucky to be able to sit with him and learn. I have not had any military experience and D.C.’s help was greatly appreciated.

D.C. began by pointing out that G.O. stands for “General Orders – “plan for attack.” The other designation is S.O. (like S.O. 38) “Special Orders – “make part of another unit.”

D.C. also explained that the term “muster” was more like a roll-call where they would line up the men and actually count them and physically take stock of what they had.

Note: R.Q.M refers to Regimental Quarter Master. Teamster meant he drove the team. D.C. explained that as Acting Sergent at Q.M. it indicates that he was promoted to “brevet.” This means he had the title, the authority, but not the pay.

5. Company Muster Roll – Every card from this point on states he is a Wagoner with company I, 9th Reg’t. Minnesota Infantry.

Based on this service record, I don’t think George was at Vicksburg which was fought from March to July 1863 and he wasn’t at Chattanooga which was in late 1863.

D.C. wrote to me in an email, in March of 2001, to help me understand the structure of the military units in the Civil War:

“Here goes: A regiment was the smallest independent unit at that time. Regiments have (usually small) numbers like the 3rd Infantry or the 10th Artillery. A regiment might have as few as one battalion or as many as eight. Each battalion might have from two to five companies, each with a letter, starting with A, B, and so on. Company letters would run in succession through the regiment; a second battalion might have companies D, E, and F, with the next battalion having G, H and so on. Each company would have two to four platoons of about 40 men each, numbered 1st platoon, 2nd platoon, etc. which will give you an idea of the size. So from smallest to largest, it runs platoon, company, battalion, regiment, division, and army. Regiments could be formed into divisions of two or more regiments, pretty much at will. Platoons always stayed with their companies, and companies always stayed with their battalions, but regiments could be switched around at times. The composition of a regiment or a division might be hard to pinpoint without some official history from the time or the area and territorial forces would be less well documented than state’s divisions.”

Things to Ponder

Time to update my theme as of 5/23/2015. Enjoy!

The Header is a picture of Pine River, courtesy of the city of Pine River.

KELLER DESCENDANTS of John and Mary (Delano) Keller. Over the past year of 2014 and currently in 2015 I have been posting about the descendants of John and Mary on my Solomon Goss of Fearing Twp., In Ohio blog (see the link below). The Surnames are: Keller, Delano, Spracklin, Evertts, Helt, Pearl, Wintermute, Barr, Van Houten, Carson, Shaffer, Kees, Lacy, Riblet and much more. Cousins are sharing on that Solomon Goss Blog. More information has come to light about these families.

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